A plant-based cafe by Squeeze Juice Works is coming to St. Pete

The Works will be located at 495 7th Avenue North in Historic Uptown. The space was recently vacated by Pete’s General

A new plant-based café and cold-pressed juice bar is opening next month in Historic Uptown. The Works is being brought to life by Kelly Lessem, the owner of the popular Squeeze Juice Works, with help from managing partners Kendra Hardesty and Meaghan Martin.

The Works will be located at 495 7th Avenue North just a half mile north of downtown St. Pete and overlooking the beautiful Round Lake Park.

Owner Kelly Lessem (left) with Managing Partners Kendra Hardesty aNd Meaghan Martin (right)

The space was recently vacated by Pete’s General, one of St. Pete’s favorite bagel shops. Steven Peterman, owner of Pete’s General, decided to close the Uptown location in order to focus on the newer, larger storefront in the Grand Central District.

“This store will be the continuing evolution of Squeeze Juice Works,” said Kelly. “It’ll allow us a creative play space to develop ideas we’ve had for a while.”

Squeeze Juice Works has two locations in St. Pete. The original shop opened in 2013 at 675 30th Avenue North next to Body Electric Yoga Studio. The second location shares a courtyard with Black Crow Coffee and Tombolo Books at 18 22nd Street South in the Grand Central District.

Compared to Squeeze, The Works will have a larger focus on food, offering made-to-order sandwiches, salads, and bowls. The menu will change periodically, but expect to see items with an international influence as well as vegan versions of popular meat-based foods, like a McRib or Philly cheesesteak.

The Works will offer made-to-order sandwiches, salads, and bowls. The final menu is still under development.

“I really want to experiment with baked goods too,” said Kelly. “There’s not much savory vegan baking in St. Pete right now.”

Kelly also wants to take advantage of Round Lake Park across the street by offering vegan charcuterie, picnic baskets, and bento boxes.

The Works will also carry Squeeze’s entire lineup of cold-pressed juices, cleanses, adaptogenic smoothies, coffee alchemy, and medicinal shots. Each juice is made from a blend of fruits, vegetables, greens, nuts, and herbs, providing great taste as well as health benefits.

There will be nine bottled juices to choose from, such as One Night in Bangkok which is a blend of carrot, coconut water, lime, ginger, cilantro, lemongrass, cayenne, and sea salt.

If it’s hot outside, grab a smoothie instead of a juice. The menu has eight smoothies that you can customize with over 25 add-ons, such as cacao, almond butter, shredded coconut, and a huge list of adaptogens.

The Works will carry Squeeze’s entire lineup of cold-pressed juices, Each made from a blend of fruits, vegetables, greens, nuts, and herbs, providing great taste as well as health benefits.

For those in need of a jolt of energy, The Works’ coffee and tea alchemy menu takes your caffeinated beverage of choice and blends it with micronutrients, adaptogens, and house-made plant-based mylks that taste delicious and fortify the body.

The new café will seat 14 diners inside and 16 on the adjacent patio.

Speaking of the patio, it’ll get a facelift in the coming weeks. A teak walkway leading to a to-go window will be installed. New seating will also be available. The existing picnic tables are getting refurbished and a lounge area with four chairs will be situated in the back next to a new water garden.

Squeeze Juice Works was founded out of necessity after Kelly was diagnosed with an autoimmune condition called Myasthenia Gravis in 2007.

“After receiving Western medical treatment at St. Anthony’s, I started to feel better,” said Kelly. “But after a while, the treatments stopped working.”

That’s when a friend in Seattle who owned a cold-pressed juice company invited Kelly to visit the west coast.

“It was an awakening for me,” said Kelly. “I always studied nutritional healing, but like a lot of people, I had always convinced myself that I was too busy, and it was too hard.”

But suddenly, Kelly’s symptoms started to dissipate. And so, she fell down a rabbit hole of research on juicing.

“People were doing really fun things with juice. I saw this movement beginning in LA and it was spreading across the country,” said Kelly. “That got me really excited.”

Before long, Kelly started juicing in her kitchen, marketing them on social media, and selling bottles from her front lawn in St. Pete.

A physical location for Squeeze Juice Works came in 2013 on 30th Avenue North. The day they opened, Bay News 9 showed up.

“It felt like tour buses were pulling up in front of our store. We could never keep juice in stock,” said Kelly. “We went from pressing three days a week to 7 days a week and producing 300 bottles a day.”

After a successful year and a half, a second location opened on 22nd Street South in 2015.

“We’ve gradually expanded our offerings beyond juice. But I’ve always wanted to have made-to-order food,” Kelly said. And so, “The Works” was born.

The Works will debut in the first half of December at 495 7th Avenue North in Historic Uptown. Hours will be 8 am to 4 pm Monday through Saturday and 8 am to 3 pm on Sunday.

Be sure to follow The Works on Instagram to stay up to date on all the latest juice and plant-based eats.